Okay, scratch what I said about SAL

Is that because it’s under NDA? Is it because it’s a skill I learned at Microsoft, but can’t use outside because of a non-compete clause?

No.

It’s because most developers won’t be getting to use it (me included, for much of my work).

I think this is a thoroughly inappropriate decision on Microsoft’s part.

Restrict detailed profiling to the Enterprise versions all you like, maybe even restrict code testing, or the version control suite, or the team functions – but what on earth is the point of restricting code analysis tools that are designed to secure Windows applications?

I don’t understand this at all.

Windows gets most of its bad reputation for unsecure code because of the applications that run on it – and frequently, the third-party applications, many of which refuse to run unless the user is a full-blown administrator, despite them being choc-full of exploitable buffer overruns.

SAL could help fix that problem, were it to be made available to the multitude of developers.

But no, it’s a “premium feature”, restricted to “the Enterprise” (not a space-ship, just big businesses).

Sometimes, Microsoft does something that I just cannot understand. This is one of those times, and I’m really irritated at them for it.